By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Mick McNeil, Group VP for Business Development, Logicalis
This week sees new and notable appointments at Vodafone Ireland, Carne Japan, ID-Pal, and Logicalis
Brice Evin, Chief Financial Officer,
Vodafone Ireland
Brice Evin, Chief Financial Officer, Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Ireland has appointed Brice Evan as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to his appointment as Vodafone Ireland CFO, Brice spent over 10 years within Vodafone Group, having joined in 2010 as part of the Mergers and Acquisitions’ team. While there, Brice played a key role in the acquisition of several cable operations and was integral to the development and completion of a variety of network sharing agreements.
Brice has also held various senior roles within the Europe Finance Organisation at Vodafone, including Head of Finance within the Europe Cluster.
More recently in 2017, Brice joined VodafoneZiggo, a joint venture between Vodafone and Liberty Global in the Netherlands as Head of Consumer Finance, during which his significant achievements included the successful integration of both businesses.
In his new role as CFO, Brice will be responsible for overseeing and managing Vodafone Ireland’s financial performance and delivering on an ambitious strategy to position the business for continued long-term sustainable growth.
Commenting on the new appointment, Anne O’Leary, CEO, Vodafone Ireland, said “Brice’s knowledge and experience of our business and industry, together with his strong leadership skills, have largely contributed to his success to date. We look forward to welcoming him to the Vodafone Ireland team, where we are at an exciting stage in our work towards creating a digital society”.
Commenting on his appointment, Brice Evin said, “Vodafone has consistently been at the forefront of innovation in Ireland, which is something I’ve always admired while working within Vodafone Group. I am looking forward to working with the highly talented team, both in finance and across the business, as we look to build on the great work already being done and embark on the next exciting stage for Vodafone”.
Brice holds an MBA in Management from INSEAD and a master’s degree from IMT Atlantique in France in Telecommunications Engineering.
Dai Kazamatsuri, Lead Director,
Carne Japan
Dai Kazamatsuri, Lead Director, Carne Japan
Carne Group, the digitally-driven industry platform to the global asset management industry, has announced the appointment of Dai Kazamatsuri as Lead Director for Carne Japan with responsibility for Carne’s Japanese clients and Japanese business development. Mr Kazamatsuri will focus on advising and providing solutions to Japanese Institutional Investors and managers across a wide range of asset classes from liquid assets to private credit, private equity, real estate and infrastructure assets.
Carne’s blue chip Japanese client base has been built up over many years and the appointment of Mr. Kazamatsuri, who has been based in Luxembourg for a number of years and is moving back to Tokyo, signals Carne’s long term commitment to its Japanese clients and partners. Mr. Kazamatsuri has a deep understanding of the Japanese, US and European markets and the requirements of Japanese promoters and investors who are looking to structure their fund ranges through European and other domiciles.
The Japanese market has seen a significant shift in recent years. The move by the Japanese Government Pension Fund (GPIF) to allocate money overseas and to increase its allocation to foreign bonds earlier this year, has paved the way for many Japanese Institutional Investors and asset managers to follow suit. As happened in the U.S. and European markets, this shift has resulted in increases allocations to alternative investment strategies such as private credit, private debt, private equity, infrastructure and real estate funds in search of higher yields against a continuing backdrop of low returns from Japanese government bonds.
Mr.Kazamatsuri who has spent 20 years working in the asset management industry, has held senior positions in both Japan and Europe. He joins Carne from Mizuho Trust & Banking’s Luxembourg subsidiary, where he spent ten years in senior roles leading their business planning and development. Most recently he was Senior Vice President heading up Mizuho’s fund business with a particular focus on large Japanese financial institutions.
Speaking about today’s announcement, Carne Group’s CEO, John Donohoe, said: “We are delighted that Dai has joined the team to help us expand our footprint in Japan. The growing interest by institutional investors in illiquid alternative assets underscores a shift within the investor community in Japan. We believe this creates even more opportunity for us to service our institutional investor and asset manager clients and to build on some very significant existing relationships.”
Dai Kazamatsuri commented: “I am excited to be joining Carne as it looks to grow its presence in Japan and around the world. Carne has ambitious plans for the Japanese market and I’m looking forward to serve our existing and new clients, whilst also developing our network of relationships.”
Simon Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer,
ID-Pal
Simon Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer, ID-Pal
Dublin-based ID-Pal, which has developed innovative technology that enables businesses to verify the identity of customers in real-time, easily and securely, has appointed Simon Montgomery as Chief Operating Officer. ID-Pal also recently completed a successful €1m funding round which was oversubscribed.
Simon brings over 20 years of experience in financial services to this new role. His addition to ID-Pal’s senior leadership team underscores the company’s focus on international expansion aligned to customer success. He formerly worked in senior roles for 17 years in pillar banks including AIB and Bank of Ireland, and most recently as Senior Operations Director for UK based fintech firm, Future Finance. Simon holds an MBA from Trinity College Dublin where he graduated from in 2014.
Colum Lyons, CEO and co-founder of ID-Pal said: “Simon’s extensive leadership skills, track record of driving sustainable change and his ability to create and implement scalable operational strategies will help us to accelerate our developments as ID-Pal enters a period of exponential international growth, where we already serve clients in 43 markets worldwide.”
Simon said: “ID-Pal is at a very exciting stage of development with market leading solutions and a growing client base ranging from indigenous SMEs to multinational corporates across multiple sectors. I am passionate about regulation and the role of technology in assuring compliance matched with convenience for companies and consumers. This is a major growth area and I’m looking forward to executing our strategy to take us to the next level”
The appointment of the new COO follows on from ID-Pal’s recent funding announcement where the company successfully raised €1m with investments from Act Venture Capital and a number of additional private investors.
ID-Pal is a Software as a Service (SaaS) developer, providing solutions for businesses to ensure compliance with regulatory identity requirements. It was founded in 2016 and has already been used in over 43 countries. The company’s products are easy for businesses to implement, simple for customers to use and ensure a seamless and secure interaction between providers of a wide range of services and their customers. Clients range in size from SMEs to large multi-national corporates.
ID-Pal’s mission is to take the cost, risk and frustration out of customer onboarding. They have packaged best-of-breed technologies with a high-quality user experience into an end-to-end solution that can be configured, branded and integrated with a business’ processes requiring minimal technical effort. The ID-Pal platform is built on a flexible technical architecture that allows businesses to maximise their customer acquisition rates compliantly across all channels and jurisdictions.
The ID-Pal system uses mobile technology that allows clients across multiple industries and sectors, including but not limited to payments, financial services, legal, insurance and property, to facilitate verification of their customers’ identities quickly and easily.
The funding will be used to continue growth and development across all areas of the business including further investment in technology, resources, system processes and Global sales and marketing activities including a focus on a range of international growth opportunities.
Current clients of ID-Pal include AIB Merchant Services, Elavon, Fexco, HID Global, KYC Global, Mercer, One4all and Sherpa Technologies, among others across the SME and corporate sectors. They also have active partnerships with Temenos and Salesforce
Mick McNeil, Group VP for Business Development,
Logicalis
Mick McNeil, Group VP for Business Development, Logicalis
Logicalis, the international IT solutions and managed services provider, has announced the appointment of Mick McNeil to the position of Group VP for Business Development. In this role, McNeil will lead the evolution of Logicalis’ Digital Transformation offering, in line with the company’s strategic partnership with Microsoft.
This appointment comes as both Logicalis and Microsoft commit to a global strategic alliance that brings their teams together to innovate with industry-leading solutions and services – jointly delivering on the promise to support customers with tangible business outcomes as they transform their businesses.
McNeil, who is relocating from Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle to Ireland, held several global roles within Microsoft’s commercial partner organisation, most recently leading the incubation of strategic partnerships across the America, Asia and the UK. In that role, McNeil was instrumental in helping Microsoft’s global partners transform their operating models to succeed in a cloud-first world.
In the form of a global strategic partnership, this renewed commitment builds upon Logicalis being one of only 65 global firms out of 60,000 cloud partners to achieve Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status worldwide. Through this elevated partnership status and McNeil’s appointment, Logicalis can further accelerate the development of its highly innovative, leading-edge solutions and services embedded with Microsoft technology for its 10,000 global customers.
Speaking about his new role, McNeil said: “Adoption of cloud technologies to empower employees, engage customers, optimise operations, and transform products is at the forefront of every CEO’s mind today. As I look across the globe at Logicalis capabilities in cloud infrastructure, advanced analytics, IoT, business process automation, and remote work/collaboration – my focus will be to bring these capabilities to deliver impact for every customer in every region, with Microsoft industry-leading technology platforms at the centre. I could not be more excited to work with our global team of 6,500+ professionals as we accelerate customers’ transformation journey to innovate and adapt in a cloud-first world.”.
Andrew Baird, Managing Director at Logicalis Ireland, added: “We are delighted to welcome Mick McNeil to the business, not only because of the wealth of expertise he brings but what it signifies in terms of the company’s ongoing partnership with Microsoft. In Ireland, as well as on a global level, we are very excited about the opportunity ahead and look forward to working with Microsoft to develop innovative solutions that support our customer base.”
